Copying with multiple spot color definitions

[Jacob Schäffer]

Steve Rickaby wrote:
> I think I may have accidentally come across a simple fix to 
> the following problem, which tripped me up on a previous job 
> in FrameMaker:

	Brilliant!

Steve Rickaby wrote:
> . You are working on a document or book that uses a spot 
> color for both text and graphics
> 
> . The final job must print on no more than two plates
> 
> . The book uses illustrations prepared in a package like Illustrator
> 
> . The name of the spot (for example, Pantone) shade differs 
> between FrameMaker and Illustrator
> 
> . This causes the final PDF to contain two plate definitions 
> for the same color, one for the FrameMaker spot color and one 
> for the illustrations, making the final plate count three and not two.

	It is possible and perfectly legal (but less expedient) to have a spot color called e.g. "Rickaby Blue" defined with different colorants on a per object basis.

	IOW, you may have a "Rickaby Blue" defined in one Illustrator EPS defined as C=100 M=80 Y=0 and K=15 and also -- on the same page in Framemaker -- have a "Rickaby Blue" in another Illustrator EPS defined as C=100 M=0 Y=100 and K=0. Upon separation both versions of "Rickaby Blue" will appear on the same plate, but the composite view (in most viewers) AND upon CMYK separation the colors will appear completely different: Version 1 is quite blue and version 2 is quite green.

	To see for yourself please feel free to download the sample I've made from http://www.grafikhuset.net/PubliPDF/rickaby.htm. An additional explanation is also provided at this link.

	Upon EPS import some applications will notify you that a color named XXX already exists with a different composition -- and offer you a set of options. Both Framemaker and InDesign CS3 fail to warn the user about the potential problem with having different colors with duplicate names in the same document.

Steve Rickaby wrote:
> I had battled with this before and not fixed it, so the 
> printer had to alias the two spot plates together. 

	This can sometimes be a good solution.

Steve Rickaby wrote:
> If you create a color definition from a Pantone library in 
> FrameMaker and then change its name, the 'Ink Name' field in 
> the color definitions dialog, which is read-only, change=s 
> from the Pantone name to 'None'. I'd assumed - and that 
> perhaps was my error - that this meant that the spot plate 
> would not be output correctly in Ps/PDF.

	The name 'None' is a reserved name that shouldn't be used for any color unless the color is used as a non-printing marker.

Steve Rickaby wrote:
> In fact, if you change the name of the spot color in 
> FrameMaker to match the name of the spot color in the CS app, 
> such as Illustrator, a separations preview in Acrobat shows 
> that both colors are defined as using the same plate in the 
> resulting PDF. A print test of this has gone ok. [So what is 
> the 'Ink Name' field for? Oh well...]

	This is likely to be true for Framemaker on Mac.

	However, it is definitely NOT true for Framemaker on Windows. Framemaker on Windows cannot preserve CMYK or SPOT colors except for those inherited from placed EPS or PDF art, and not when used on intrinsic Framemaker element. Please see the whitepaper "Difficult PDF documents in prepress" for details (http://www.grafikhuset.net/PubliPDF/whitepaper_difficult_pdf_documents.html).

Steve Rickaby wrote:
> There is a related issue, to do with Illustrator: a new spot 
> swatch in Illustrator (CS2) defaults to process output. You 
> have to go into the swatch palette menu, select Swatch 
> Options, and set it to output as spot for the shade not to 
> result in CMYK plates. If you know that, and if you are 
> creating your own artwork, there is no problem. If you don't, 
> or aren't, it requires eight mouse-clicks per file to 
> correct. I didn't, and wasn't, and there were over 420 such 
> files in this job :-(

	Uh, that's a lot of work.


All the best
Jacob Schäffer
Grafikhuset ApS
Paradis Allé 22
Ramløse
3200 Helsinge
Tel: +45 4439 4400